


wet with the midnight due

by Sham



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/F, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-11
Updated: 2011-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 06:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sham/pseuds/Sham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgause pauses, hesitates for just a moment. “You’re safe now. Your friends, they turned on you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	wet with the midnight due

When Morgana finally wakes up, she leaves her eyes closed while she breathes. In, out and again, and the air is cool in her throat, her lungs, colder than she’s used to. She’s not in Camelot, and something in her exhales with relief.

She still hasn’t opened her eyes or moved when there’s a sound beside her, when the room darkens beyond her eyelids like a shadow over her face. Her eyes fly open involuntarily, staring into Morgause, her hands coming up to clutch at Morgause’s shoulders.

“Oh,” she breathes, surprised, and she tries to sit up, Morgause’s arm a band of warm steel behind her back.

“Morgana,” Morgause says, and there’s a warmth in her eyes that makes Morgana’s breath catch. “You’re awake. Good. I was- well. I was concerned.”

Morgana takes the moment to look around, swinging her legs to the floor. She’s wearing a different dress, she notices, a glowing thing of soft, delicate fabric, finer than anything she’s worn before, and she strokes it thoughtfully. “Where am I? What happened?”

Morgause pauses, hesitates for just a moment. “You’re safe now. Your friends, they turned on you.”

There’s another minute of taut silence, stretched tight between them with unwilling apologies and regrets, and grief and disappointment coats Morgana’s throat until she swallows, unsurprised, and raises her chin. “I see.” She looks at Morgause, at the hidden outline of a dagger at her hip. “Now what?”

 

Morgause’s castle is beautiful. It’s not as big as Uther’s, no, nor as regal or as dependable or familiar, but there’s a strength to it that makes Morgana feel safe. There’s power in every stone, here, wrought in magic and blood and when Morgana puts her hands against the roughly-hewn walls, she sees gold spark up to limn them.

Morgause shows her to her room and leaves her there with a careful smile, her eyes still lined in dark black and filled with secrets. Morgana sits on the carefully made bed, sweeping her palms absently across the soft sheets as she looks around, noting the fine decorations, the beauty of the room. There are weapons lining the walls, great swords with runes etched into them and delicate daggers that she pulls down and tucks into the sash across her waist. She fingers a crossbow, runs her hands down the tense string and admires the glow of the wood.

Crossing to the wardrobe in the corner, Morgana inhales, the air warming to her presence and she imagines that she can taste the magic in the air. She opens the door, it swinging open silently, and on the top shelf are neatly folded dresses. She pulls one out, allowing the material to unfold in her hands, to drape across her arms as she gasps. It’s beautiful, easily the most gorgeous dress she’s ever seen, and she touches the pads of her fingers to the embroidery, to the tiny jewels sewn painstakingly into the material. It’s not of normal fashions, and without any reason, she thinks of it being sewn and decorated in the sun of foreign countries.

She folds it carefully, places it back in an ocean of colour, and on the next shelf she finds piles of breeches to match Morgause’s, to match Arthur’s. Brown leather, soft but sturdy, and without another thought she shucks her dress, leaves it pooled on the floor as she slides into them, slips a soft tunic over the top. She’s never worn men’s clothes so perfectly fitted to her body, like a second skin, and it hugs her hips, her waist. She admires herself in the mirror and then bends to her dress, tears a small strip from the bottom, and winds her hair up into a knot at the back of her neck, winds the material around and ties it off.

She smiles, then, and Uther wouldn’t recognise her now.

 

When Morgana emerges from her room, she immediately seeks Morgause out, following the sounds of panting and grunts along long corridors to the outside. The cold air hits her like a wall, stinging against her face and she tenses, gasping, then lets it out with a long, slow breath. Her clothes are warm, though, and as she relaxes again it’s almost as if heat travels along her blood through her veins, warming her from the inside out.

Morgause is there, training. Her hair is a wild mass of blonde down her back, her own training clothes a slick slide of leather all along her body and there’s something fierce and untamed in the snarl on her face as she lunges and parries and strikes at a practice dummy, leaping and moving rapidly around it. Predatorily, Morgana thinks, and sees again how this woman could defeat Arthur, who Morgana has always grudgingly acknowledged as the best warrior she’s seen.

Then she startles back, eyes wide, because the dummy is moving, straw peeking out through stained clothes, and he’s proving to be a worthy adversary, a rough wooden sword a blur through the air. It’s the most open display of magic she’s seen and she revels in it, the freedom and daring, and inside her chest a cage opens and something inside her breaks free.

She watches unnoticed until Morgause turns to face her, sword falling to rest safely by her hip. Morgause smiles at her, welcoming, and motions her over. Morgana’s there before she even realises, her fingers curling around the hilt of a sword Morgause conjured for her, and she closes her eyes as the older woman settles her arms around her, positioning her with no regard for propriety, and she breathes in and in and in.

 

After dinner, after Morgana has gorged herself on fruit and meat and bread, rich red wine, she sits across from Morgause, wait and eyes her boldly when Morgause looks up from her book, places her fingers between old pages to mark her place.

“So what’s the plan?” She asks, and Morgause’s eyes crease with approval.

“That depends,” She says, a smile spreading slow and inevitable across her face. “What are you willing to do?”

Morgana throws her head back and laughs, the sound bubbling up through her like the darkness of mead, and she leans forward, places her hand confidently on Morgause’s thigh. “Anything,”

 

(Barely an hour later, Morgause has her spilled across blood-red sheets and she’s sucking bruises into the pale skin of her throat, stroking the hard bones of her collar. Morgana’s fist is twisted too tightly into Morgause’s hair and she’s choking back moans and whimpers, sweat beading across her skin.

She’s never felt anything like this before, untamed and beautiful, like heat and danger, flames licking across her skin, tightening her nipples and making wetness flood between her legs, damp and swollen.

Morgause pauses, cups her hands around Morgana’s face, touches her cheeks, her eyes, her lips with a delicacy at odds with the calluses on her hands. “You are so very beautiful,” she murmurs. “I’ve found you at last,” she says, and Morgana thrills as something like destiny clicks in her breastbone.

She lurches up to catch Morgause’s mouth with her own, licking into her deeply and laughs as Morgause throws her back down with magic, stretches electric ties down and across her arms, binds them together and to the headboard, tension in her shoulders and Morgana arches into them, moaning.

“Finally,” she breathes into the press of Morgause’s lips.)

 

They pass days like that, sweat a constant film over their bodies as they train, as they fuck, sitting entwined in bed while Morgause teaches Morgana magic. Morgana loves it, warms to in instantly, and she feels drunk on power and sex, on the bruises around her wrists and the anger in her heart.

It’s almost unnoticeable, the rage under her skin, she’s lived with it so long. It’s a part of her now, that in blank, quiet moments she thinks of Camelot, of Uther and Merlin and her fingers shake, red building in the spaces behind her eyes.

Morgause knows, feels the same, and she presses ideas of vengeance into Morgana’s hips at night along with bruises, dark skin that Morgana digs her nails into the next day, smiling.

Then one day, in the sun, she outlines her plans to Morgana, whispers them out until Morgana is gasping in pleasure at the idea of them. Morgause is confident, so confident as she talks of them, bloodthirsty and proud, her face fierce and her golden hair shining in the light. It makes Morgana laugh to think, and she teases, “Are you quite sure you aren’t related to Arthur?” It sends a shock through her to picture Morgause in Pendragon red, velvet and leather both.

Something not quite a smile plays across Morgause’s lips, something secret and dark and Morgana’s own smile wavers and she opens her mouth to question but Morgause catches at her, whispers, “Yes, I’m quite sure,” and presses Morgana to the ground, presses into her, and Morgana forgets all about it.

**Author's Note:**

> author's note: title again taken from johnny cash's _god's gonna cut you down_


End file.
